Visiting Pakistani Journalist Sadia Khan partners with KBOO News

(March 10, 2014) Portland, OR – KBOO Community Radio, in partnership with the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), will host pioneering Pakistani journalist, Sadia Khan, in their newsroom March 10th to 31st, 2014, as part of the U.S. Pakistan Professional Partnership in Journalism. This program gives visiting journalists a chance to experience first-hand how U.S. media organizations operate, opening a window on journalism in America and therefore on American society and politics. “We’re really happy to have this opportunity to host such an experienced and pioneering journalist as Sadia Khan,” stated Jenka Soderberg, News Director at KBOO Community Radio. Ms. Khan was one of the first women in Pakistan to produce news in the field.

Ms. Khan currently lives and works in her home city of Lahore, Pakistan, the capital of the Pakistani province of Punjab. Previously she worked for 7 years in Islamabad, covering the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, multiple bomb blasts, earthquakes and floods. She will join the KBOO newsroom beginning Monday, March 10th and assist in all aspects of news and public affairs at KBOO for 4 weeks.

The multi-year program will bring 230 Pakistani media professionals to the United States and send 70 U.S. journalists to Pakistan. Journalists will study each other’s cultures as they are immersed in newsrooms in each country. Ms. Khan and 20 Pakistani journalists have been preparing for several days in Washington, DC and will travel back to Washington, DC at the end of their 4 weeks to reconnect and to share context and insight on their experience. Both Pakistani and U.S. journalist in the program will have opportunities to report on their experiences in each country, which will help to educate their audiences as well as build long-term partnerships between news organizations.

Ms. Khan believes the ICFJ program is doing a very good thing for both countries. “If we hear about the U.S. in Pakistan, it’s only about a very limited number of cities and a limited perspective. It’s a big step to send 20 Pakistani journalists to places like Portland. We will all learn and then our communities will learn from us.”

KBOO will host a free, community forum where Ms. Khan will discuss her pioneering work in Pakistani media, Thursday, March 20th from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm at the station located at 20 SE 8th Avenue, Portland, Oregon 97214 (one half block south of Burnside).

KBOO is a non-commercial, non-profit, community radio station providing music, news and public affairs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year to Portland, Corvallis, Vancouver, Salem, Mount Hood and the surrounding areas as well as streaming on-line world wide. All programming is produced by volunteers with the assistance of paid staff. The weekly cumulative KBOO audience is approximately 60,000 listeners.